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by thatotherperv



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Human, Angsty Schmoop, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-27
Updated: 2007-03-28
Packaged: 2017-12-09 14:15:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/775145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatotherperv/pseuds/thatotherperv
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angel and Spike grew up together in the foster care system.  When Spike ages out, he goes to the one person he knows he can count on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> While this fic doesn’t dig too deeply into the realities of the foster care system, it is true that in California (as in other states), once a foster child turns 18, they’re booted out of the system with very little assistance. It’s a serious problem, and Angel and Spike fare unrealistically well in this fic. There’s a great article on the problem from a recent San Francisco Chronicle [here](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/17/BAGP8NK0SL1.DTL). There’s also an editorial from a journalist at the Washington Times who was raised in the system for 12 of his first 18 years [here](http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060924-085114-3557r.htm). 
> 
> Ok, enough with the social consciousness. 
> 
> **Warnings** : One brief moment of underage boy-part touching, but the majority of the fic occurs when they’re both of-age. A wee bit of schmoop. And the boys were raised in the same foster home, so I suppose if you have a sensitive incest squick, it might trigger it. but their brother-like relationship really isn’t emphasized.
> 
> original posting [here](http://thatotherperv.livejournal.com/105304.html)

this fic (which is completed in 4 parts) is being posted for two things: my day, and to celebrate my one-year anniversary of my first ever fic post (Won't Back Down). now, technically I'm supposed to be posting this on the 28th...but says it's midnight on the east coast so I'm good. *shifty eyes* blame her.

thanks to for reading this and telling me I'm not a crackhead.

~*~*~*~*~  
February 1996  
~*~*~*~*~

“Ang?”

The cautious whisper jolted Angel out of an exceedingly good dream about Darla Fitzsimmons…the kind of dream they’d assured him in health class wasn’t shameful for a 12-year-old boy to have, but all the same, he was really thankful Will had woken him before the dream had…ended. Or this would have been awkward.

He rolled over, still bleary from sleep. “Yeah, buddy…what’s wrong.”

“I need in.” 

There was a slight quaver to the voice issuing from the small body silhouetted by his bed, so Angel thought disgusting, off-putting thoughts as he lifted the covers in invitation. Will clamored onto the mattress, and when he snuggled into Angel’s side, Angel hugged him close.

He stroked his hand comfortingly through the mop of curls resting against his shoulder. The eight-year-old was trembling just a bit. Angel’s voice was careful and quiet. “Bad dream?”

Will nodded. Angel didn’t have to ask what the dream had been about. They all had bad memories, here in foster care. The two of them were both pretty lucky, all things considered, but try telling that to a scared little kid. He knew Will had been put in the system last year when he’d been found skin and bones, alone in an abandoned apartment. His mother had just left him there and moved away. Who _did_ that?

His own parents never would have left them cold and hungry. Except now they were gone, and he and Kat were the only ones left….

Not totally alone. Angel also had Will, and Will had nightmares about being left behind in that apartment. Waking up alone terrified him—even if his bed _was_ in the same room as Angel’s. They had gotten along alright from the moment Angel was put in this home, and it wasn’t long after that this had become a near-nightly ritual. It got kind of awkward now that his body was changing, but Will was the same age as Kathy…and Angel could only hope that wherever they’d put his little sister, she had someone safe there to comfort her. Since he wasn’t there to do it himself.

Angel pushed Will’s hair back from his face, but the boy was already breathing in deep, steady rhythms and he knew he wouldn’t stir again. He always slept soundly once he’d crawled into Angel’s bed. 

Duty done, Angel threw his free arm over his head, and drifted back into a (hopefully) dreamless sleep.

 

~*~*~*~*~  
May 1999  
~*~*~*~*~

“I don’t have to listen to a bloody thing you say.”

Angel rolled his eyes as he put the car in gear and pulled away from the front of the middle school. His hardship license meant that picking the younger boy up in the afternoon had been passed off to him. “You will, if you know what’s best for you.”

Will snorted. “And who crowned you king?”

“Look, Will—”

“Spike, you stupid ponce.”

Angel bit his tongue, trying to be the mature one, but he couldn’t keep his opinion about the nickname out of his tone. “Okay, _Spike_ , I don’t need any special authority to tell you that if you go home right now wearing eyeliner, Judy’s gonna beat the snot out of you. All it takes is common sense, which you obviously don’t have.”

“You may be afraid of that bint, _Liam_ , but I, for one, am not. She can go crawl back in her bottle and pretend I don’t exist. ‘S what she’s best at, innit?”

Angel sighed, reiterating to himself for the thousandth time that he hated this new game of Will’s where he thought he could do whatever he wanted. The world didn’t _work_ like that. “Look, I have to go to work tonight, so I can’t spend the whole night running interference for you. If you’d just behave—”

Spike rolled his eyes and slouched further into his seat, and Angel could hear the petty insults as if they’d been spoken. Sodding goody-goody. Golden boy. All-American Nancy. He was surprised Spike was holding his tongue, until the boy side-eyed him and Angel realized there was an ulterior motive. He knew what Will wanted before he even opened his mouth.

“No.”

All of the preteen punkish attitude was dropped in favor of guileless pleading. “Please, Angel? _Please_. You’re on your way there anyway, and there’s this girl—”

“I am not taking you to work with me.”

A little snort destroyed the angelic image Spike was trying to put on. “Never said I wanted to go to work with you. I can live without the wonderful world of corndogs, thank you.”

“Okay,” Angel said, playing along, “I’m not taking you to the _mall_ with me. Not after the last time.”

“I meant to pay for it,” Spike said quickly. “Just slipped my mind, is all.”

It was Angel’s turn to make a sound of utter disbelief. “I know you, kid.”

He said it just to make Spike bristle. Barely twelve years old and he thought he was a man. Or something. But when Angel looked over at him, he saw under the shell. Will hated being alone with their foster mother. And to be fair, their foster mother hated being alone with him. The only reason Will hadn’t been moved to another house is because Angel was a model citizen, and he kept them together. _Begged_ that they be kept together. Will wouldn’t do well without him.

So Angel caved, just like Will probably knew he would. “Fine. But if you get yourself into trouble again, so help me god, I’ll—”

Will mugged happily at him, body language shifting into something relaxed and excited. “Won’t be a problem. Promise.”

 

~*~*~*~*~  
April 2002  
~*~*~*~*~

“Ang.”

Angel had hardly been asleep at all, and somehow the murmured nickname from their childhood was no surprise. He’d been expecting it, he realized. Expecting it and dreading it.

“Go away, Will.” His voice didn’t hold much conviction, but it turned out that didn’t matter anyway, because another body was sliding into the twin-sized bed with him, forcing him to scoot over until he was against the wall. And even then, Will pressed in on his other side, head on the pillow with Angel’s, breathing too close against his ear as Angel stared stubbornly at the ceiling. 

“Don’t go.”

They’d been over this so many times, but Will resisted the inevitability mulishly. “I have no choice.”

“Sure you do,” Will whispered. “Don’t. Go.”

Angel let his head roll towards the other boy and gave him a pointed look, but that brought their faces far too close together. Will’s eyes dropped to his mouth in the dark, and Angel turned his head the other way, tilted so he was nearly talking to the wall when he said, _again_ , “Judy and Ted didn’t have to let me stay this long. The state stopped paying them two months ago.”

“Bollocks.” The anger in the word was diluted by upset.

“I’m of age, Will, it’s not their job anymore.”

“If they were civilized, they’d let you graduate first.”

“It’s three weeks away, I’ll be fine.”

There was a long pause, during which Will drew a long breath and let it go with melancholy resignation. “ _I_ won’t.”

It was fucking unfair, playing his emotions like that, with the small scared voice. So unlike Will’s (Spike’s) normal irritating persona—fifteen and full of himself. Angel gave in and turned to look at him, even though they were too close together. Will seemed to take Angel getting kicked out of the house as a personal insult. Or punishment.

“You’ll be fine too, promise. Home stretch.”

“Home stretch!” Will refuted, a bit too loudly. “How the bloody hell can you—three years, Liam. I’m stuck here for three more years. Might as well be a life sentence.”

Angel’s mouth curved up with a seed of amusement. “I know it feels that way, but it’ll be over before you know it. You don’t need me, kiddo.”

“I’m not a child.” His upset belied his words. “And yes, I do. You stubborn ass.”

When Will pressed his mouth deliberately to Angel’s, suddenly and with more irritation than affection, Angel wished he could say that it was the first time they had kissed. Will had made a bad habit, these last few months, of catching him off guard and…. Well, he was infatuated, which was understandable, Angel guessed. Their history being what it was. Sort of natural for the hero worship of a little kid to turn into teenage puppy love…though Will would take a swing at him for calling it that, even in his head.

Angel still hadn’t worked out why, if Will was the one with the crush, his own stomach buzzed pleasantly every time the other boy ambushed him with a kiss. He didn’t even like boys, not the way that _Will_ liked boys. A way he made no secret of, this past year.

When Will realized that he hadn’t met any resistance this time—hadn’t been gently pushed away, as usual—his mouth opened against Angel’s with a pleading little noise. Angel should push him away. He should push him away and send him back to his bed, because Will had to grow up sometime. This was just…it was fear of the unknown. Angel had been there to hold his hand for the last six years, and all that changed tomorrow.

But the hell of it was, Angel didn’t want it to change either. Not really. He was terrified. What the hell was he supposed to do? He was eighteen, but he wasn’t an adult. His scholarship at UCLA wouldn’t pay out until August, and he was essentially homeless till then. He had enough cash in the bank to make it a couple weeks past graduation at a shitty motel, and then…no way his job would be enough to pay the bills, even if they could pick him up full-time. And even once school started…he was scared he was gonna fuck it up.

The state said he was on his own to live as an adult, but hell if he knew how.

And he would miss Will, too. The little shit-head. 

So there was no harm in a little comfort, was there? Will was young, but Angel knew too well that he was no stranger to kissing. And Angel was straight, but…this didn’t have to be about sex. Affection. Affection, and something like love.

When Angel started to kiss back, Will hummed and pressed himself closer. His fingers curled into the short hair at the back of Angel’s head, as though he was afraid that Angel would change his mind any second. But when Angel moved, it was only to turn his body so he was laying on his side. It was more comfortable, and immediately, Will inched in to get closer. 

And he was… _Will_. He was too skinny, at the tail end of a growth spurt, so when Angel’s hand came to rest at his waist, it spanned too much skin, front and back, where his t-shirt had ridden up. He smelled like cigarettes—Angel _told_ him not to smoke—and the cheeseburger he’d had for dinner, and his lips were oddly soft. It wasn’t like any kiss Angel had ever shared with a girl, but it wasn’t as rough as what he’d have expected between the two of them either. 

The smaller boy made a short, pleading noise in his throat and dragged himself closer to Angel, hand pressing against the wing of Angel’s shoulder blade to keep them skin-to-skin. Angel became self-consciously aware that he and Will were only wearing boxer shorts. And the thing that slammed that little point home was the fact that they were both half-hard. Getting less and less ‘half’ by the moment.

Will moaned—“Liam”—and clumsily pressed his hips against Angel’s, knee working between Angel’s thighs in an attempt to get even closer, and Angel felt his temperature rising. 

God, this really shouldn’t be doing it for him. He didn’t like guys. He especially didn’t like little blond mouthy guys who thought they were hot shit.

And he really shouldn’t like them when they were the closest thing Angel had ever had to a little brother.

All of his guilt came to a head when a smooth, long-boned hand took hold of his dick through a thin layer of cotton. Angel arched and gasped as Will started to tug him off awkwardly but with the kind of efficiency usually reserved for yanking your own….

Angel freaked, shoving him so hard that Will’s smaller frame went tumbling out of the bed. He landed on the floor in a tangle of limbs, face etched with rejection.

“I’m not gay!” Angel blurted, although that was so far from being the uppermost thought in his mind, and ever since Will had started kissing him, he wasn’t even sure that that was true. “Not everybody wants you, Spike. I sure as hell don’t.”

Angel had just a second to realize he’d just confirmed this boy’s worst nightmare before Will was jumping to his feet. 

“You can go stuff yourself, you arrogant prick. Wasn’t even you I was wanting.” Will started gathering up clothing, balling it up in his arms as he vibrated with anger. “You know, I’m glad you’re buggering off tomorrow, because…your hair is stupid, and…you can go rot in an alley for all I care.”

Still half-naked, the boy slammed out of their bedroom, and moments later, Angel heard the front door banging shut so loud the walls shook. He thought about going after him, but they’d only get in a fist-fight in the front yard, and no one would be thanking him for that.

Angel never thought for a second that Spike would really never speak to him again. But when he woke up the next morning and drove away, there wasn’t a bratty blond in sight.

 

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
March 2005 - present  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Liam caught the beer that Xander lobbed in his direction and turned to Lindsey. “Thanks, Xan. So, explain to me again why Gunn bailed on us tonight?”

Lindsey smirked. “Date with his new girl. Pretty as you are, you can’t compete with Winifred Burkle.”

Liam gave him a brief scowl. “If I’m pretty, what does it say about you for noticing, MacDonald?”

“Well, you have to hand it to the man, you _did_ win a beauty pageant. The evidence against you is quite damning.” Xander grinned and ducked when Liam tossed the remote at his head.

“God, I’m never going to hear the end of this. It was for charity, people.”

“Aww, my heart bleeds for you, Mr. GQ. It does me right to know that you only use your beauty for good, not evil.”

“You should have done it for the charity of Time Warner. You need cable, man. Desperately.”

“If you feel that strongly about it, _you_ can cough up the cash, Harris, seeing as you’re all graduated and employed. Not that you’d know it. What was that starting salary again?”

Liam shared a laugh with Lindsey when Xander actually blushed. “Shut up. I’ll get a raise…some day. At least I wasn’t dumb enough to sign on for another three years of school. Can’t say the same for either of you.”

“Yeah, we’ll see if you’re singin’ that tune when we’re raking in a lawyer’s salary. Although this dumb bastard will probably be working for peanuts for a non-profit.”

“Just because not all of us are willing to sell our souls—” When there was a knock on the door, Liam took the opportunity to avoid more ribbing, pushing himself to his feet as the laughter followed him down the hall.

Before he could reach it, a second round of banging began, and it occurred to Liam who he might find on the other side.

It took him three wordless seconds to take in the situation on his doorstep—Spike, duffle, knowing grin—and he was slamming the door shut. The answer to the unasked question didn’t require any thought, or conversation, but unfortunately Spike stuck one steel-toed boot in the door and it rebounded off enough that he got a shoulder in.

No choice but to deal with him now. Dammit.

“No.”

“Didn’t recall askin’ you a question yet, luv.”

“The answer is no.”

“Now see, that’s unreasonable. What if I were going to ask you, is the sky blue, or…do squirrels make little squirrels, when they love another squirrel very much? Can’t know that the answer is no before I even open my mouth.”

“I know you, and I know your mouth—” bad choice of words, but he pushed through before Spike could give voice to the gleam in his eye—“and I _know_ without a doubt that the answer is no.”

Spike’s grin melted away, leaving in its place pleading eyes. God, he was such a manipulative little shit. “Angel, luv, you’ve got to listen to me. They’ve booted me out. I’m _homeless_ , pet, you wouldn’t leave me like that, would you?”

“They’ve booted you out because today is your eighteenth birthday, _Spike_ , and you saw that coming, same as I did. I had to grow up, now so do you. Get the hell off my doorstep and go do it somewhere else.”

“I know that’s just the anger talking, luv, so I won’t take offense. But surely you can’t let—”

Liam gaped. “Yes. It’s the anger talking. It’s also my wallet. I’ve posted bail for you how many times? At a couple hundred bucks a pop. You’re not a kid any more. Go…play in traffic. Leave me alone.”

“Now, see, I know you’re just speaking out of turn, because that made no sense. ‘You’re not a kid, go play in traffic?’ Have you been eating properly? Because you know you forget to—”

There was a scuffle as Liam tried to shove Spike out the door and Spike resisted losing his foothold. He’d gotten him out except for a hand clinging to the door jam—and Angel wished he had the heart to just slam the door shut, he really did.

“I’ve turned over a new leaf!”

“I just bailed you out _last Tuesday_. Petty theft. Again. How many foster homes was it since I left? Six, seven, eight?”

“Nine, actually. Three homes a year, that was practically _commitment_ , luv. And my situation’s changed since then, hasn’t it? Juvie record’s all sealed—clean slate.” Spike fidgeted as Liam stared at him blankly, jaw clenching. Spike could never take the silence. Yell at him and he could argue all day—punch him in the face and he howled at the moon and hit you right back. Silence, though, was unbearable. This was why Liam was the only one that won any arguments with the brat at all. “Angel. I’m appealin’ to your better nature, pet. Can’t be expected to finish high school if I’m truly on my own. No cushy bank account like you had—bit of the grasshopper, me.”

Spike gave him a wan, sad smile. Practically batted his eyelashes.

Liam sighed out through his nose and looked over Spike’s shoulder. Goddammit. He could feel himself softening. He couldn’t afford to do this. Literally. And Spike was a risky proposition at best. He was never going to change.

But the kid had good instincts, so he moved right in for the kill. “What kind of life can I expect without so much as a high school diploma, hmm?”

Before Liam could answer one way or the other, Spike’s eyes shifted over his shoulder. 

“Dude, who’s this and why’re you blockin’ him out like an armed gunman?”

Lindsey. Fuck. 

Spike reached right under Liam’s arm to offer Lindsey a hand…chipped nailpolish and all, which was sure to get an eyebrow. He’d get teased about it later. “Name’s Spike, luv. And Angel here just hasn’t owned up to the fact that he’s happy to see me yet.”

“ _Angel_ ….” Lindsey repeated, as if it were a foreign word. Which it sort of was, because no one had called him that for years. Angel was his mom’s little boy. Angel was that too-old kid in foster care. Angel was _not_ who he wanted to be. He’d left all that behind. ‘Course, to Lindsey it just sounded like a pet name. “Ohhh, I get it. This guy an ex, Liam?”

Liam’s hurried “No!” clashed against a smugly amused “Of sorts.” Lindsey laughed at the disagreement while Spike cocked a brow at him and mouthed ‘ex?’ God, he was never going to hear the end of that. Like a dog with a bone.

“Well hey, an ex-boyfriend of Liam’s, that might be interesting,” Lindsey was saying. “You play poker, Spike? We need a fourth, our buddy bailed on us for a chick.”

Spike grinned right past Liam’s noise of protest, eyes sweeping down to Lindsey’s crotch and back. “I do a bit, yeah. Wouldn’t mind taking _you_ for a ride.”

Liam fumed at the suggestive once-over. He was gonna kill him.

Lindsey just chuckled. “Easy, there. I’ll just settle for the game, if it’s all the same to you.”

“’S a real tragedy, pet, but I think I’ll live to see another day.”

“Well c’mon, Liam, let the boy in. He has money to lose.”

With a very unhappy sigh to tell everyone how little he liked this arrangement, he stepped aside to let Spike pass. 

“Yeah, about that…as it turns out, Angel here’s going to have to front me a bit of dosh….”


	2. Chapter 2

Liam awoke to moist suction on his earlobe. That, and a rough hand in his sweatpants, pumping his cock with sure strokes as the weight of a lean body shifted excitedly over his own. He moaned and arched up, offering more of himself as the mouth moved down to his throat.

He thought he was dreaming of Wes until his hands tangled into hair that was too long to be Wes’s, and curly, and brittle with processing.

“Spike!” he realized, just as the fantasy mouth closed on his cock, and all thoughts of shoving him out of bed, whoever he was, flew out the window.

When Spike chuckled around his flesh, Liam was too occupied with the eye-rolling pleasure of the vibration to want to strangle him. This is not what he had in mind when he said Spike could stay one night. Just one.

But at this point, he wasn’t sure he cared.

Ohh, fuck. He was going to find whoever taught Will to give such good head and torture them to a slow, bloody end. But first, he’d kill William himself for being presumptuous enough to climb into his bed.

This early in the morning his dick did most of the thinking, so when Spike tugged his sweats down his legs, he cooperated. And when Spike crooked his knee for him and two slim fingers probed gently against his hole, Liam relaxed and let them in, gasping at the moan around his head, clamping his hand down on the headboard at the gentle massage against his prostate. Couldn’t have possibly stopped the roll of his hips up into Spike’s face.

Liam didn’t even realize Spike was naked until he was on top of him again, panting excitedly. They both shuddered at the grind of their cocks, legs tangled together as they rolled against one another. Kissing Spike was just as he remembered it from that night a long time ago, except different. Older. 

“Ang. God, luv. Yes.” Words moaned into his skin, air puffing as Spike nuzzled in under his jaw bone, thrusting fast against each other. Liam cupped large hands against his ass, pressing him down for greater friction as he chased his own orgasm, and when he caught up with it he stiffened and clutched—but somehow Spike was the one who groaned on his behalf. Teeth sank into his neck as Spike’s thrusting became frantic and then suddenly slow and deliberate, four long hard slides against Liam’s lax body, slippery on both their come.

Liam’s mind hadn’t even had time to clear (ok, no, that _wasn’t_ a dream) before Spike was jumping out of the bed. He blinked dumbly at the ceiling as he heard rustling in the living room, then Spike was back, still naked as he snicked the lighter against the end of his cigarette and threw himself onto the bed, making the mattress bounce a little. 

Spike stretched like a pleased cat and pillowed his head against his own arm, grinning. “Well. That was just brilliant, wasn’t it?”

Liam ground his fingers against his closed eyelids, trying to make out what the fuck had just happened here.

“Please don’t tell me we’re up for a round of hide-the-queer, because according to all your mates, you’re gay as a picnic basket. Or…half a picnic basket, since apparently you fancy women as well. Whatever. Point is, you like men.”

“Yes,” Liam managed. “I like men.”

“Good. It’s settled then.”

Liam’s eyes were wide open all of a sudden. “ _What’s_ settled?”

“You fancy me. Glad we can stop dancing around that.” Spike took a pull off his cigarette, looking pleased to have resolved one of the great mysteries of his life.

“I like _men_. I never said—”

Spike snorted. “Try it on someone who didn’t just have their mouth on your cock, luv.”

“Exactly! Your mouth. I was asleep! I can’t be expected to…who the fuck turns down a blowjob? I never would have….”

“Mmmm. ‘Specially one as good as mine, eh?” Spike winked and tapped his ash into an empty water glass on Liam’s bedside table.

“That’s—it was—shut up, that’s besides the point. I never would have chosen that. Not if I was awake.”

Spike considered him with good humor. “Right. Well I don’t suppose you’ll be admitting you’re wrong later, because that’s not what you do, is it?”

“You know, for someone who came begging charity, you’re playing an awfully dangerous game.”

“No, ‘m not. You won’t kick me out. ‘Specially not now.” He watched Liam sputter. “Not that that’s why I did it, mind.”

The worst part was, Liam couldn’t really say he was wrong. For whatever stupid reason, he couldn’t turn Spike away. Despite all resolutions to the contrary. “You get arrested _once_ , and I will. I swear.”

Spike lay back and blew smoke towards the ceiling. “Told you, that won’t be a problem.”

“And I told _you_ I didn’t believe you.”

Spike shrugged as though he wasn’t bothered…and he probably wasn’t. Out of things to say, Liam let the silence lapse as Spike finished his cigarette. Somehow it didn’t occur to him to kick Spike out of the bed. At least it was a double.

The door across the hall opened and Lindsey stumbled out, hair rumpled from sleep. He would have stumbled obliviously to the kitchen if Spike hadn’t called out his name. 

“Morning, mate! Fancy eggs? Only thing I cook, but they’re fantastic.”

Lindsey squinted into the dim bedroom, taking in Spike—on top of the covers, naked—and Liam, by all appearances naked _under_ the covers, and the post-coital cigarette. 

He laughed as he shuffled off to the living room.

~*~*~*~*~

And that’s how Liam’s life got thoroughly and completely hijacked. Somehow once they got started…he couldn’t say no. Sex with Spike was like a force of nature. Or more accurately, a natural disaster. Liam could hardly concentrate on anything. Sure, he was already into law school, but he still had to pull decent grades for finals. At this rate, by the time finals rolled around, his brain would be a shriveled little walnut rattling around in his skull.

It was atrophied from disuse these days, and all the blood had apparently been rerouted to his cock.

He’d tried to be good. The second night, Liam had locked his bedroom door. He might feel obligated to give Spike a place to live, but the sex…the sex was a bad idea. A horrible idea. In theory, it was the worst thing he could do.

In practice….

In practice, when Spike ambushed him in the bathroom the morning of day three, he buckled shamelessly easily. It didn’t help that he’d dreamed of this very thing the night before. Dreamed about Spike on his knees in the shower, but this was so much better than he’d imagined. Spike kept Liam moaning until all the hot water was gone, and Liam completely forgot all his objections until half an hour later when he realized that Spike had used his toothbrush. 

That should have been the end of it.

On day four, Spike attacked Liam on the couch. It started out as wrestling, and sort of turned into…naked wrestling. Day five, he inserted himself in Liam’s bed before he had the chance to shut him out. Liam reasoned that it was ok, because they weren’t having actual _intercourse_. Day six….

Well, truthfully, after day five, there didn’t seem to be much point in playing the blushing virgin. The jig was up and Spike was clearly going to continue pursuing him no matter what he wanted.

Though Liam had a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t Spike’s clever schemes that had him giving in time and again.

Other than the sex, life with Spike was exactly how he had expected it to be. Loud, annoying, and inconvenient (though come to think of it, the sex itself was two out of three). Spike watched action movies cranked up in volume till all hours of the night, left his dirty clothes _everywhere_ , and he never did his dishes. He did go to school, but Liam sure as hell never saw him crack a book, and he had no job. Of _course_ he wasn’t paying rent. Sometimes he wore Liam’s clothes (the ones that weren’t ‘poncy’) and he always spilled shit all over them.

One day he bleached his hair in the bathroom sink, and now there were weird discolorations that were definitely going to lose Liam some of his deposit. Not to mention the toxic fumes.

He smoked in the apartment. He hogged the bed.

He _constantly_ mocked and complained about the fact that Liam was so busy. Said Liam was living like an old man and to lighten up. He stopped trying to study at home, because Spike started coming into the kitchen to jab and yap at him until he lost all patience and told him that no, the Joker would _never_ really get the best of Batman, because there was a reason he was the fricking _hero_ , and if Spike said he was just a ponce in tights _one_ more time…. 

Liam was sure his neighbors now hated him, because they had begun banging on the wall at two in the morning to get them to stop yelling at one another.

But inevitably, the arguments always turned into sex. Really good sex. Angry, hot, sometimes violent sex that left them both so exhausted that Liam not only forgot what they were fighting about—he usually forgot to get back to History of American Law, as well. It was the best sex Liam had had in…well…ever, though he was never letting that fact slip to Spike or he’d never hear the end of it.

Other than that, Spike was annoying the living shit out of him.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Ah, fuck, Ang….”

Angel hitched Will’s knee higher and leaned back in for a kiss as he began thrusting in longer strokes, dragging his cock over Will’s. They were both slick with effort and lust, and Angel moaned when Will arched up into him, arms wrapped around his shoulders, keeping him close.

They’d been at it a while, but Angel didn’t even think about coming…he just wanted to stay here, doing this. It was addictive, beyond the usual honeymoon period infatuation. They’d never had that.

Angel wasn’t sure he was _capable_ of a honeymoon with Spike. 

One particularly hard thrust conspired with an enthusiastic roll of Spike’s hips, and Angel’s breath hitched on a shudder as his cock slipped lower and nudged against Will’s ass. It was the one thing they hadn’t done, for some reason. All motion ceased as they stared at one another, panting, but Angel’s hips had a mind of their own, pulsing forward, seeking entrance.

He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. Things had already gone far enough between them.

Spike should have been gloating smugly, but there was something vulnerable about his expression. “There’s condoms in the drawer. Lube as well.” 

Liam’s eyes slid to the drawer and back. “Have you ever…?”

Will’s held his for a moment and then averted guiltily, strangely awkward. “Yeah, you know I have, pet.”

He supposed he did know. Though it didn’t stop him from feeling a little homicidal towards whoever had taken advantage of….

It was stupid. Spike could take care of himself. In _that_ way, at any rate.

When he pressed a gentle kiss to Will’s mouth, the other boy startled with a surprised little noise.

The sex that night was different, and not just for the act of penetration. It was slow and tender and surprisingly scary for being both of those things, and Angel couldn’t remember ever feeling that way. Not just about Spike. About _anyone_.

But the next morning Spike picked a fight before they’d even eaten breakfast, and there was screaming and name-calling and door-slamming, and life pretty much returned to normal.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Three weeks after Spike came to live with them, he officially ruined Liam’s life.

Lindsey had been kind of shifty the week that rent was due…Liam had wondered why. It wasn’t a lack of funds, because he produced the check without hesitation. But then over breakfast one morning, he dropped a bombshell under the guise of a casual suggestion.

“You know…I could always move out a little sooner than we’d discussed. Crash with Xander—no problem.”

It took Liam a moment to register the remark. “What? Why would you…No!”

“It’s just, I figure…three’s a crowd, right? You guys probably want your privacy. At least, that’s what I’m gonna assume from the free show I get every morning…night…sometimes afternoon. You should tell Spike that your bedroom door does close. …And that I’m now afraid to prepare food in our kitchen.” Lindsey pulled a face.

God. “That’s…we’re not….” 

“Uh, yeah, you are. I not only get the visual, I get surround sound. Crappy insulation we’ve got here.”

“Look, Linds, please don’t leave. You know I can’t afford to keep this place myself till Kathy moves in, and you know we can’t even afford _her_ till her financial aid clears in the fall.”

“You got Spike now. He can pay half the rent.”

 _That_ was rich. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when Spike gets a job, much less forks over a couple hundred bucks for something as trivial as a roof over his head.”

“Dude, look, you know I don’t have any problem with you and guys, right? No weird vibes from me at all when you came out. But man…it’s a little uncomfortable around here lately, alright? I like Spike, I do, but I don’t need to see so damned much of him, you get me? I’m gonna move in with Harris at the end of the month, but I can pay up for next month too if you need it. And then it’ll only be June and July you’ll have to cover till Kat’s aid kicks in.”

Fuck. “No way I can change your mind about this?”

“Not even if you let me live here for free.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Liam didn’t sleep very well that night. He had no freaking clue how he was going to cover Lindsey’s half of the rent for two months, much less three—whatever he said, Liam knew Lindsey couldn’t really afford to pay up for May, not if he wasn’t living here. None of them were exactly rich. 

Liam’s loan checks barely got him through the summer, in the past. It was tight as it was, even when the rent was shared and _before_ they’d moved into this nicer place in anticipation of Kathy. If he hadn’t worked two jobs last summer—the internship _and_ a paying gig—then he wouldn’t have had money to feed himself come July. 

This summer he was supposed to work at a firm—again, unpaid—and the kind of hours they’d be keeping weren’t going to allow for picking up cash on the side. It would have been fine, except now he was feeding two people, one of whom apparently had a very fast metabolism. Now this.

Next year, there would be three of them. And it was all on him to make sure they were fed and housed.

He had no idea how he was going to pull it all off. But he had a feeling he was going to get an ulcer trying.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Liam was exhausted and too cranky for words by the time he got home that evening. He’d barely slept the night before, he was fairly sure he’d bombed his lit exam, and he was greeted _not_ by the silence of his apartment, but by the blare of the stereo.

He was passing through the living room straight back to the bedroom when he realized it was not the stereo. It was the television. To be more specific, it was a music video.

On MTV.

He stopped and stared in disbelief, eyes going back towards the new tangle of cable behind the set. Then his eyes ticked, inevitably, to Spike. Sprawling with his legs kicked up on the coffee table, dirty boots and all.

It took him a moment to find a voice that was not a wordless scream.

“We have cable.” He said the words as if they were in a foreign language. One that he did not understand.

“Yeah, ‘s great, innit? Now you’ve got more than 4 fuzzy stations and one wriggly one.”

“We have cable.” Liam had the feeling he was speaking just to hear himself talk, but he attempted to explain the situation to himself anyway.

Spike, however, looked at him like he was daft. “…Yeah. Think we already covered that. Then again, you always were a slow one.”

Let’s try this again. “You ordered cable?”

Spike flashed him a grin. “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

“…I’m _welcome_.”

Spike hesitated at the growing anger in Angel’s tone. “Yeah. Thought it would be…. Who can live without cable tv in this day and age, anyway?”

“Someone who can’t afford a hundred fucking dollars a month spent on nothing, Spike.”

Spike blinked at the near-growl. “They had a special….”

“Can you be something other than a pain in my fucking ass for two seconds?”

Spike sat up. “Oi! Look here!”

“First you invite yourself to live here without a thought to pulling your own weight—in _any_ way imaginable, unless blowing me counts—then you drive Lindsey out—”

Spike’s expression swung from confused to disbelieving, but inexplicably, he latched on to one thing. “…Lindsey’s leaving?”

Liam didn’t acknowledge it. “And now, you set us up with cable fucking television, so you can be even more useless than you already are. Have you even thought about what’s going to happen when you graduate? I have to put my _sister_ through _college_. College, which you will not be attending, because you’re a fucking—” Spike blinked as he waved his hands emphatically, at a loss. “A fucking…grasshopper. Do you think you can just hang around here forever? Because you can’t. I’ll kick you out on your ass, I don’t care how homeless you’ll be.” Angel glowered at Spike, who was just staring back at him with huge eyes. “…Well??”

Spike looked genuinely at loss for words for several long moments. Finally… “Pet, I think that’s more words than you’ve ever strung together at once in your whole life.”

Angel wanted to kill him. Strangle him with his bare hands until his eyeballs popped out.

Somehow, he managed to turn around and slam out the front door, instead.


	3. Chapter 3

After Liam’s outburst, things changed. Liam kept plodding along like he ever did, except now he picked up another job. Of course. What choice did he have? Lindsey moved out. He left behind most of his furniture. There was nowhere to put it at Xander’s place until they moved into the new apartment, and it’s not like they’d be able to find someone to sublet this time of the year, anyhow.

He hardly saw Spike. At first he thought it was just his own schedule. He was in class all day and worked the better portion of the night, and when he _was_ home, Spike was usually still at school. Which was lucky, because Liam really needed that time to study, and nothing ever got done when he was around.

After a while, though, Angel started to realize that Spike himself wasn’t as home nearly as often as he should be.

He didn’t see him on the evenings he had off. Often Spike wouldn’t come home until 1 or 2 in the morning, and on the weekends, it was worse. He was out all night and he slept all day. He took to crashing in Lindsey’s old room, presumably so that he wouldn’t wake Angel up at 4am and get all sorts of pesky questions about where he’d been.

They hadn’t had sex in…. Well, it had been a while.

Angel started getting suspicious.

But he was busy keeping his head above water with classes that were closing in rapidly on finals and one job where his boss hated him and another where his boss wanted to screw him, in the good way except it wasn’t good because _he_ didn’t want to screw _her_ , by any stretch of the imagination, so…he didn’t really look into Spike’s newfound hobby.

But he was even more suspicious when a bigger tv and an X-Box and a brand new dvd player showed up one by one, and Liam had never shelled out the cash.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

He came home to giggling.

It was the first time he and Spike had been home at the same time in a week, and at first he thought Spike had brought some girl home from school, which didn’t make much sense. Not for _that_ , anyway. Spike hadn’t been interested in girls since the first blush of adolescence.

Just before he stepped through to the living room, Angel recognized the female voice…and suddenly wished it _was_ just some girl Spike was putting the moves on.

“Oh my god, you didn’t! What did he do?”

“Thought he was gonna bloody kill me. You know how he is about clothes, the sodding girl. So he charges into our room all—” Spike was arrested in his pantomime of a finger wiggling through cigarette-burned cloth as he caught sight of Angel in the doorway. For a brief moment, Spike stiffened at seeing him, but the awkwardness was exchanged so quickly for smug humor that Angel wasn’t even sure it had been there. 

He had no idea how one person could simultaneously make him feel so irritated and guilty. 

“’llo, pet. I was just tellin’ your sis all about the glory days.”

Kat, who had been far too absorbed in Spike for Angel’s comfort, swung around to look at him, eyes bright. “You never told me you got suspended when you were in school. And you get on _my_ ass if I get so much as a B.”

“Don’t say ass,” he corrected automatically, ignoring the synchronized roll of two sets of blue eyes. He remembered the incident Spike had probably been telling Kat about…but in his mind, it wasn’t the suspension that stood out, so much as Will’s face mottled with bruises, and the fractured tailbone that meant he couldn’t sit well for weeks. 

He shook off the bad memory.

“Yeah, well…obviously he didn’t tell you why I got suspended. I was trying to save his…butt, and I got caught fighting.”

Smirking, Spike leaned in to Kathy’s ear confidentially, a casual hand dropping onto her leg. “He likes to play the martyr, our Liam.”

He was a little irritated that the memory didn’t seem to phase Spike at all, when it still made him sick that anyone would beat on someone that way just because they were too small to fight back. And then Kathy blushed girlishly at the attention, and Angel felt his hackles rise. She had no business looking at Spike that way.

“Spike’s gay!” he blurted.

Spike merely lifted an amused brow, but Kathy’s eyes rounded, face flaring bright red. “I _know_ that!”

Spike was laughing at him, but Angel forged ahead. “Do you? He’s a flirt, but I promise he’s not interested.”

“God, don’t be such a dickhead!” The word sounded all wrong coming from his sweet-faced baby sister, and he shot a dirty look at Spike—who was clearly a bad influence—before storming into the kitchen.

This was the reason Spike and Kathy had never met. She was…impressionable, and Spike was charming and smooth and way too good-looking for anyone’s good. When they all first got into foster care, Angel himself hardly ever saw his sister, and by the time they were allowed to see one another more freely, they were older and Spike had been getting into more and more trouble. He hadn’t wanted to expose Kathy to that, not when she was doing so well. Thriving despite everything. 

And now Kathy was starting college, and Spike was doing…whatever the hell he was doing, and they were all going to live together? Angel would have to keep a close eye on her the first year and make sure she wasn’t getting distracted. 

Angel pulled leftover Chinese out of the fridge and sniffed at it. He could hear _them_ laughing in the living room, fast friends. He hadn’t seen Kat in a month, he’d been so busy, and she hadn’t even gotten up to give him a hug. There had been a time when she was always thrilled to see him. She met Spike for five minutes and all of a sudden she was too good for him. Next thing he knew, they’d be off…doing…whatever it was that Spike did these days.

What the hell _was_ Spike doing with his time, anyway? He’d never really been into drugs, as far as Angel knew, but if that’s how he was making money, now was a fine time to start. Did he get that he would be tried as an _adult_? He probably didn’t care, he’d always been a child that way. Angel was going to have to lay down the law. However much of a pain in the ass Spike was, he didn’t belong in _prison_ , and if Angel had to kick his ass to keep him from ending up there, then he’d do it. Again.

Irritable, he shoved the carton of noodles into the microwave, hit start, and scowled as the numbers counted slowly back to zero.

“Is there room for one more at this pity party or is it all full up?”

Kathy was lingering in the doorway. She didn’t look angry at him anymore…he wondered what Spike had said to her. When he opened up his arms to her, she let herself be caught up in a tight hug.

“I’m sorry I embarrassed you,” he finally mumbled, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. She was still so tiny, sometimes he forgot that she was almost 18. All grown up—except to him, she never would be. “I just didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

“And you were jealous,” she added. He made no comment to that, mostly because he had been. He’d always been Kathy’s hero and he didn’t care to share the spotlight. God help them all the first time she brought home a boy next year.

Seemed best to change the subject. “How’s school?”

Angel smiled smally at the exasperated little sigh she made before pulling away. “Fine, just like it’s always fine. You can quit being such a mother hen, you know.”

“I’ll have you know, I’m very manly,” he teased. “If anything, I’m a father hen.” He frowned over that a moment, but it made Kat laugh.

“You’re such a dork.” She pulled away from him and leaned back against the counter. “So…does this mean Spike is living with us next year?”

Angel was still leery of the hopeful note in her voice. “Yeah, probably.”

“Good. Because I think you need him. He doesn’t take your crap, and he won’t let you sulk the way you always do, and obviously he’s in love with you, so—”

It was Angel’s turn to blush. “He’s not…did he tell you about….” He was gonna kill him.

“No, but…it’s completely obvious, the way that he talks about you.” Kathy gave him an assessing look. “And you’re in love with _him_ , aren’t you?”

Angel’s mind went blank. “Um….” 

“You are, I know you are. You go all protective-bossy-guy with him, which you only ever do for me, so….”

They stared at one another for a moment, and Kathy looked increasingly amused. He’d never really thought about them in those terms. Spike was just…Spike. He was…of _course_ Angel acted like that with him, how else was he supposed to? Spike had always needed him. Always. And Angel had always given him what he needed, even when he had a sneaking suspicion he wasn’t doing him any favors. He couldn’t help it.

It was just…it was a thing.

Finally Kathy rolled her eyes and leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. “I have to get going, I could only stay for a little while. But I’ll be by next week, ok? Can we start looking for furniture for my bedroom? My friends are all impressed that I’ll be living off-campus next year, but don’t worry, I explained I’d be living with my lame big brother. No parties at Casa No-fun. …Liam?”

“Yeah,” he agreed finally, waking up to her chatter. “I’ll keep an eye out for used stuff.”

“ _Nice_ used stuff,” she reminded him. “I’m not a boy, I have standards.”

He smiled and cuffed the side of her head gently. “Yeah, yeah, I got the memo. Get out of here.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Angel listened to Kat leave as he pulled his food out of the microwave. She paused in the living room on her way out, laughing at something in Spike’s incongruous baritone that Angel wasn’t able to catch. Spike _had_ been flirting—he only used that voice when he was—but Angel doubted he meant any harm. He’d learned at a young age that he could get things from people (especially women-shaped people) when he turned on the charm. He was probably just trying to put Kat at ease.

Didn’t mean he had to like it.

Angel sighed and leaned against the counter as he ate the steaming leftovers out of the carton.

What was he going to do about Spike?

He was clearly up to no good, but it was partially Angel’s fault. He hadn’t been around a lot lately, and Spike couldn’t be alone, he knew this. Look what had happened to him after Angel left the system. He’d been doing so well up until that point.

Well, relatively.

Angel had always thought, always told himself, that his was the influence of a big brother, but…. He thought about what Kat had casually thrown out there as if it were verifiable fact. Angel knew years ago, when Will was young, that he’d developed a crush, but that last year in foster care…had it been love? 

When did it come to that?

It didn’t really matter, when it came right down to it. Regardless of how Spike felt about him, Angel felt a responsibility. It was time they had a talk about whatever it was that had been going on around here.

But maybe he could be a little nicer about it.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Spike looked up from the tv as Angel came in and settled next to him on the sofa, determined to be civil. Civil, but firm. 

Spike gave him a knowing smile. “Done sulking, are we?”

“I wasn’t sulking, I was thinking.”

“Yeah, bet you were thinking very hard on how I probably wanted to shag your baby sis.” Angel looked away guiltily, a little irritated in spite of his resolution when Spike laughed at him. “Daft git. Even if I swung that way, already know how bloody high-maintenance _you_ are. Can’t imagine the female version. God help the bloke she marries.”

“I’m not…. And neither is—no one is marrying anyone. She’s too young.”

This time Spike’s smile went kind of…soft. Strangely so. Angel looked away. “Yeah, ok. Be all grown up before you know it, pet. You’d better get used to the idea.”

Angel’s throat felt tight at the idea of Kat outgrowing him. He cleared it. Spike was still regarding him with an odd fondness. “You’re no older than she is.”

The corners of Will’s mouth twitched up in a facsimile of a smile, eyes becoming a little guarded. “Not by years, no. Still a bit of the optimist in her, though. You’ve kept a close watch over the years, I’d wager.”

“Yeah.” When Spike lifted a bottle to his lips in the awkward silence, Angel realized it was beer. Remembering his purpose, he pulled it out of Spike’s hands. Spike tried to grapple it back laughingly, but Angel wouldn’t let him.

“Oi! That’s mine. Another in the fridge, if you want.”

“Yeah, about this being yours. How is that, exactly?”

Immediately, Spike got shifty. “There was this bloke. And…he gave it to me. For. Helping him out with something. Look, it’s none of your business where I get my booze, give it over.”

The stilted explanation opened a whole new avenue for money-making that hadn’t occurred to Angel before, and his stomach rolled with ill ease. “You’re right, except for the part where you’re not old enough to drink. And the part where you’re not a kid anymore and there are consequences to breaking the law, and the part where the second you moved in with me, you became my responsibility. Don’t be—” He bit back the words ‘an idiot,’ but barely. He lowered his voice. “Look. I know I went off on you about money, before. But it’s not…for you to worry about. I’ll take care of it.”

Spike looked both confused with the change of subject and insulted. “What’s that mean? ‘M old enough to take care of myself, Angel. I don’t know what weird power trip you’re on with some fantasy of me as your little housewife, but—”

“That’s not…don’t twist my words that way. I just mean. You don’t have to… _do_ things for money. Or… _sell_ things. Or….” 

Angel didn’t want to spell it out, but Spike’s eyebrows kept hitching up towards his hairline, and it didn’t seem like he was going to make it easy on him. 

“God, Will, I don’t know what it is you’ve been doing and I’m not sure I want to know, but underage drinking is going to be the least of our problems if you get caught at it.”

Spike blinked at him for a moment before his lips parted slightly in shock. “You—” Angel was startled when he jumped to his feet. “You bloody…sanctimonious bastard. You thought I was….” He stood over Angel, breathing fast, and the look on his face made Angel’s stomach drop. “‘Course that’s what you thought, because that’s all I’m good for, innit? But only when it’s payment in trade for room and board.” 

“What? No, I—” Before Angel could get a word in, Spike had stormed out of the room, reappearing a moment later to toss a wad of bills into Angel’s lap. Angel looked from the money up to Spike’s coldly furious expression. 

He’d actually never seen him look like that before.

“There’s rent. Just in case you were still confused as to whether or not I’m whoring myself out to you in order to have a warm place to lay my head.”

Angel had no idea how things had gotten away from him like this. “Will, I never thought—”

“Said as much the last time, didn’t you? But let’s not even bring that up, because it’s worse that you just assumed I was whoring myself out to everyone else for a little spending money.” The flicker of hurt was so fast that Angel would have missed it if he hadn’t known Spike so well. “What’s a laugh is that I would have told you weeks ago that I started tending bar, if you’d cared to ask. But you didn’t, did you. Just assumed I was…what, selling ass or drugs or…stealing. And even then, you couldn’t be bothered to bring it up.”

Angel opened his mouth to defend himself, but he closed it and looked away guiltily. When you put it like _that_ …. He took a deep breath. “Will, you have to admit, you don’t have the best track record.”

He cringed at the choked laugh Spike suddenly made.

“God, I am such a ponce. Thought I could finally prove to you—” For one horrifying moment, Angel was sure Spike was about to cry. Then he snatched up his coat and strode towards the door. “Gonna be late for work.”

The door slammed behind him, and the apartment settled into utter silence.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been pointed out to me that legal age to tend bar is 21 in California (*waves to mistress_tien*) but let's pretend he's doing something legal, hmm? it's 18 here, I didn't even think to check.

Will didn’t come home that night, or the next, or the next, or the one after that. At first, Angel brushed it off as Spike needing space to lick his wounds…he’d always been that way. He didn’t blame him. Spike would come home when he was ready and they would talk and everything would be fine. Angel would apologize, obviously. He had no idea Will would take it that way.

—Ok, now that he thought about it, there weren’t many other ways _to_ take it. It was a horribly insulting thing to imply. But….

The longer Will was gone, the sicker Angel felt. By the third day, he’d stopped going to class. He called in sick for work. He wasn’t sleeping. Spike’s high school wouldn’t give him any information, because he wasn’t family. Hanging around the building like a child predator didn’t seem to be the best way to do anything but get himself arrested. He started calling bars, but gave up after number 22. It was LA, there were a million bars. Without a clue as to what area of _town_ , much less which establishment, it was useless. 

On day seven, Angel filed a missing persons report, but he had no illusions that resources would be spent locating an adult male in perfect health who hadn’t checked in with his roommate lately.

And anyway, it turned out to be unnecessary. The next morning when Angel woke up, Spike was home.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Angel’s heart thudded dully when he saw the trail of Spike’s clothing strewn down the hall—duster, shirt, belt…ending in two motorcycle boots kicked off at the threshold to Lindsey’s old room. When he quietly pushed the door farther ajar, the light from the hallway fell across Will, collapsed face-down on top of the covers in his jeans, one sock dangling off the foot that hadn’t quite made it onto the bed with the rest of him.

Angel would have laughed if he could have squeezed anything past the lump in his throat. He didn’t even care about the strong stench of beer permeating the room. He was just so relieved that Will was _there_. Alive and well.

He didn’t stir when Angel sat down on the edge of the bed. He used to sleep just like this as a little boy, dead to the world and sprawled out like he owned the place, even when it meant kicking Angel in the kidneys in the process. And he looked young, just now. His face was slack and his hair was a mess, and his hand was curled loosely near his face.

Angel felt another squeeze of relief as he reached out and combed Spike’s over-processed hair back from his face.

At the touch, Spike startled awake with a sharp inhale. He blinked groggily, offering Angel a small, disoriented smile and quickly grimacing at the taste in his mouth. Angel could pinpoint the exact moment when he remembered their parting argument.

He shifted away from Angel and rolled over onto his back, scrubbing a hand over his face. He grimaced again at the light from the hall.

“Don’t worry, won’t stay long.” His voice was gruff with his hangover. “My so-called mate kicked me out of his place…just needed a place to sleep for the night.”

Angel hesitated, trying to avoid sticking his foot in his mouth again. Finally he settled on something neutral enough. And true, he realized. “You’re always welcome here.”

Spike gave him a snide look that said, _Yeah, sure…right_.

“I was an asshole.” Spike snorted and covered his aching eyes with his hand, shielding them from the light. Angel pulled it away, making Spike look at him. “I’m serious.”

Spike’s expression was stony and impassive. “I know. You were seriously an asshole.”

“I just thought….”

“That I was incapable of doing anything but fucking up.”

“ _No_!” _Yes_. “I just…it seemed weird that you suddenly had all this money.”

Spike scoffed. “Never occurred to you that I might have gotten a job.”

“…Not really.”

“Never occurred to you to _ask_ me where the money had come from.”

“You would have just lied about it.”

“Yeah, suppose I _would_ have, if it was ill-gotten. But since when have I been able to lie to you and get away with it? Blood annoying, that. Like a human polygraph.”

Angel’s mouth twitched upwards a bit. “That, or you’re a really bad liar.”

He received a scowl, and two very rude fingers. He smiled some more.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I should have asked.”

There was a grudging pause before Spike squinted up at him. “You’re sorry _and_ I’m right. We’d best start praying now, luv, because the apocalypse is nigh.”

Angel shoved at him irritably, secretly glad that Spike was smiling, even if it was to annoy the shit out of him. “I’m serious!”

“Yeah, you usually are.”

Neither one of them acknowledged that Spike had retained Angel’s shoving hand and was now sort of…holding it.

“Know I haven’t exactly been responsible, in the past—” Angel snorted at the understatement. “Oi! Just because you foolishly squandered your youth on tax forms and textbooks doesn’t mean everyone’s meant to.”

“It’s not foolish—”

“What I’m _saying_ ,” Spike soothed, “is that you would do well to trust me a bit. Or you’re going to fret yourself into the nuthouse.” 

“It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s just—”

Spike looked distinctly exasperated just before he pulled Angel down onto the bed and rolled them, settling his weight onto Angel. Angel, for his part, was momentarily distracted by the press of their hips.

“It’s just that you don’t trust me. Look, if I’d wanted to go on as I had before, there were plenty of other blokes lining up to shag me that would have been a hell of a lot more fun. ‘Stead I came here to be nagged onto the straight and narrow by His Majesty, Self-sacrificing King of Pain.”

It was difficult to be offended, he realized, at words that were murmured close against your ear, punctuated by teeth and tongue latching onto pliable cartilage while slim hips undulated against your own. Difficult…maybe even impossible. Angel’s mind went all blank and gooey.

“Thing is…wouldn’t it be nice to have someone take care of _you_ every once in a while?”

The nimble hand massaging his cock through his sweats made a startlingly convincing case while Spike rubbed himself against his hip. Angel groaned as fingers slipped under the waistband to take hold of him in a bare palm. He was pretty sure they were supposed to be talking about something.

Spike gave a small laugh against his throat. “So we’re agreed, then?”

Angel knew from experience that agreeing with Spike blindly was a very bad thing, but it was hard to concentrate with a moist, sucking mouth trailing down his torso…impossible when it mouthed along his shaft through the thick material, teeth scraping out a light tease.

“Yeah?”

The light in the room was dim, but Angel could still make out the light eyes that questioned him as his sweats were peeled over his hips. They ticked upwards at the warm breath on bare skin.

Angel had no idea what he was agreeing to…but it didn’t really matter, because this was Spike, and “Yeah.”

The smile he got for that was one that Angel would have called sweet when Spike was a little boy. Then Spike’s mouth was on-over-around his cock, and all thoughts of their childhood were gone.

Angel didn’t close his eyes. Spike had one hand tucked beneath his waist, and Angel absently stroked his arm and shoulder as he watched him tease and lave. Angel’s belly was already moving rapidly with excited breath by the time Spike crooked his leg for him and smoothly pressed one slick finger inside.

The massage against his prostate made him arch up. It made him want more than the tease of a blowjob Spike was giving him, but when his hand tangled into Spike’s hair to encourage him, harder, faster, more, it was lifted away and placed back on his own stomach.

“What did we say, hmm?” Spike’s breath shuddered over his wet shaft with a laugh, finger glancing over his nerves again, and Angel felt the strong urge to whine.

“Spike—”

“Angel,” Spike teased. 

More lube was applied from a tube Angel hadn’t realized Spike had, and then two fingers were entering him. It felt like a stretch, uncomfortable and tight, but Spike was being careful—careful in a way he’d never seen Spike be—and soon there was pleasure again. A hot mouth and sparks sounding off deep inside, and his hips were moving in tight little thrusting circles against the hold Spike had on them.

There was the periodic burn as Spike moved inside him, and kisses brushed against his thighs and belly, and Spike’s pupils were wide and black.

And now when he spoke, his voice was rough with more than just his hangover. “Wanna roll over for me, luv?”

Angel froze up, suddenly realizing what agreement he’d missed, and Spike stopped moving. After another moment, Spike slipped his fingers free and he sat up, hands resting lightly on Angel’s thighs.

“Pet?”

He’d never bottomed before. Never even thought about it, and it never would have occurred to him that _Spike_ would be the one….

It surprised him when the flashing images put a hot tingling buzz low in his stomach.

Angel didn’t realize just how long of a silence there had been until Spike’s expression grew resigned and he began to move away. 

“Wait.” Angel grabbed Spike’s wrist to keep him from leaving, but he was backlit by the light from the hallway now and it was difficult to make out his features. Feeling self-conscious and naked (which he was, but…yeah, the other kind of naked. Really, really naked and nervous, and maybe just a little bit nauseous), he rolled onto his stomach.

He was holding his breath when the bed shifted and a light hand stroked down his back, and lips pressed against the tattoo he’d gotten in a fit of stupidity on his 18th birthday. 

It had been Spike’s idea. Of course it had.

He was almost too tense for Spike’s fingers when they probed again at his hole, but there was steady pressure and a hand stroking over his lower back and a few murmured endearments…and eventually the tension eased away.

(“’M not gonna hurt you, you silly sod, so unclench a bit, there’s a darling.”)

Spike made him laugh, and made him gasp, and eventually made him bite his lip as he pressed the head of his cock against Angel’s hole and carefully pushed inside.

When Angel tried to push himself up, to push back, to participate, a hand between his shoulder blades put him back flat against the bed, and then Spike’s weight settled over his back. Warm skin to warm skin.

“Told you, didn’t I?”

The light reprimand ended as Spike withdrew and thrust back inside. It made Angel moan and arch his back—felt good, even though it was uncomfortable at first, even though it was odd to lay there, completely powerless in this position to do anything other than absorb the slow-fast slam of Spike’s hips into his own and claw at the sheets that smelled like Spike.

Spike’s breath was hot and shaky against the back of Angel’s neck, and Angel felt oddly enveloped by him…by the bracing arms and the chest tightly pressed to his back and the thighs hugging the outsides of his own. 

“Fuck. Pet.” Lips were pressed to the back of his sweaty neck…then scraping teeth that made him shudder. “Good, yeah?”

Angel nodded, and Spike pushed up to kneel behind him, shifting him onto his knees as he began to plow harder into Angel from behind. Now Angel could push back against him, mind full of white static as he grunted on each impact.

He knew he flushed bright red when Spike murmured, “That’s right, luv, fuck yourself on my cock. God, you’ve got a pretty arse.”

But he did it anyway.

He was so close. He could feel the tell-tale tingle at the base of his spine, and Spike’s breath was hitching and heavy in that now-familiar cadence. Once Spike took hold of his erection and started pumping him, it was only a matter of time before, one after the other, they both stiffened and shuddered as they came. 

It was somewhat soothing to Angel’s ego that afterwards, Spike lay sprawled under _his_ possessive arm, looking sated and sleepy as a kitten who’d glutted itself on cream. Though he was pretty sure any comparisons between Spike and a kitten out loud meant he wouldn’t get laid for a very long time, so he kept his mouth shut.

Spike grinned at him smugly. “See what good things happen when you let _me_ drive for a change?” At the exaggerated eyebrow waggle, Angel laughed and kissed him. And then Spike kissed _him_. And then he kissed back….

And Spike still had hangover breath, so that just _proved_ he loved him.

Huh. Apparently…he did.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

Their faces were lying close together on the pillow. Spike smiled. “Yeah, you’re a bit of alright too, you big berk.”

“Listen, about next year—”

Spike looked away, suddenly irritated. He blew an exasperated breath towards the ceiling. “I registered for community college, are you happy now? Dunno what the bloody hell I’m paying them for, but….”

When he gave him a dirty look as if education were a plague, Angel couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah. That does make me happy, actually. But I was just going to say you need to keep your clothes on when Kat comes to live with us.”

Spike blinked at him for a moment before his mouth curved up, eyes crinkling at the corners. “Course, we’ll have to get a better lock on the door to the bedroom, because every coed from here to San Diego is going to want to watch me shag you senseless.”

“Spike….”

“No, ‘s true. Might want to soundproof the place as well, unless you want them to hear you beggin’ me, ‘give it to me harder, Spike. Christ, what a big cock you have, Spike.’”

Angel had found, through trial and error, that the best way to shut Spike up was to put something in his mouth. In this case, his tongue. 

When he pulled back this time, Spike was practically purring. Definitely not talking, which was good. Except….

“Spike?”

“Mm. Yeah, luv.”

“Promise me something.”

“What’s that?”

“From now on, you brush your teeth before we make out. And use mouthwash, while you’re at it.”

Because really…he didn’t love him _that_ much.


End file.
